Think of it as “doing due diligence”. They’re positioning themselves against what is seen as a worker-exploiting labor tactic that abuses a policy loophole, knowing full well that Google’s priority of bottom line profits will likely take precedence over acknowledging their request. If Google blinks and changes their hiring practices, state and federal labor regulators could pounce on the de facto admission of guilt and charge back pay with penalties and punish the rest of the contractor-abusers industry too. If Google does not blink, the senators can rightfully say that they tried to play nice and must now proceed to use their role as senators to altering labor law to make this abuse illegal. It’s not a “lazy request” so much as a “gauntlet softly thrown”.